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How to get rich without getting lucky

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Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#341

Post by wilsonnb »

refurb wrote: post #315
wilsonnb wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having some talent at hiring and managing people helped. Luck. > Spending my teenage years writing clever little programs in 6502 assembly language on my Commodore 64 instead of smoking weed and partying helped. Lucky enough to grow up with access to a computer in a time when that wasn't common. > Having a strong knack for math and computer science helped. Luck again.

You argument is not a worthwhile one. No matter the example, you could always narrow it down to "luck". "Lucky you didn't get run over by a car" "Lucky you didn't get cancer and die" "Lucky WW3 didn't start and destroy your country" What's the point?

The percentage of people that had access to a Commodore 64 was relatively small, so a person had a high chance of not having access. That means it was lucky to have had access.

The percentage of people that are killed in a car accident is relatively small, so a person who is not killed in a car accident doesn't need to be particularly lucky to avoid being killed in a car accident.

Yes, luck is a factor in everything, but the role that luck plays in everything is not the same.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#342

Post by madengr »

shove wrote: post #152
maehwasu wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Western culture is probably the least materialistic of all major cultures (500M+ people).

>Western culture is probably the least materialistic of all major cultures Is this sarcasm? What are you basing this on? I don't think I've ever heard anyone opine this before.

Probably the Chinese concept of "face".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept)

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#343

Post by sizzle »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #293
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #158

The highest probability for success for the 'everyday person': - Earn as much as you can from your own work. Take a 2nd job, change to a higher paying job, ask for more responsibility and a raise at your current job, go back to school for a more lucrative degree, ... - Spend much less than you earn. Economize, share an apartment, buy an inexpensive car, shop at Trader Joe's and Costco, .... - Learn how to invest. Thi…

Even simpler, it is an equation with three variables: income, expenses, and rate of return on savings. An important point is that you do not need to hyper-optimize all three variables to achieve a good outcome, which makes it adaptable to many lifestyles and circumstances. Hyper-frugality is not the only path. There are multiple viable strategies that can be built around optimizing one or two variables and paying min…

As an investing noob, most of my money is parked in low interest savings accounts. How much of my life savings should I park in index funds? Any smart investing resources/guides you recommend? Thanks for your time.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#344

Post by melling »

oliwarner wrote: post #297

Isn't this the tenth how-to-get-rich post today? I guess that's fairly standard, and I ignore them, but they're getting votes today. I'm a little surprised that —since every other thread on HN is about hacking your diet/wardrobe/matress to counteract the crushing depression you get from your job— nobody is putting one and one together. There is more to life than money. I don't want to sound too hippy but there is. Th…

No one said that money was the most important thing. You added that.

Then you proceeded to tell everyone else how they should live their lives.

Understanding how to effectively generate wealth, build companies, etc is something that has certain advantages. For instance, this will allow for more time to appreciate the other things in life.

Warren Buffett spends most of his day reading, which he loves to do, for example.

He’ll be donating 99% of his wealth.

Your life is your choices but, quite honestly, you’re adding noise to the conversation that people were trying to have.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#345

Post by petra »

hfdgiutdryg wrote: post #317
petra wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> You'll see a non-trivial amount of income from advertising on the website and speaking Fuck the modern web. Such a bunch of crap. Someone needs to build a search engine for sites that don't carry any form of advertisement. charge subscription. seems worthy.

Micropayments were going to be the wave of the future back around 2000. It never happened. People want intangible stuff for what they perceive as free.

Not micropayments. just small subscription fees for that specialized search engine(or maybe even that isn't necessary).

But i want to read content from people just wanting to write, without perverse incentives, as much as possible.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#346

Post by nightski »

sametmax wrote: post #299
notyourwork wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This depends on where you live though. Midwest basically required a car, living in Seattle and SF my wife and I never need a car. It’s not always as simple as grouping a population. America is big and diverse.

I just came back from the valley, and I get that the american society and infrastructure is encouraging the to use a car. Like Australia. I also get that, living in a city in France, it's easier to avoid having a car. yet I note that you could have a motorbike. You could not have kids. You could move close to your work. You could move in an area requiring less car. You could change your job to one not needing a car.…

Meh I live in the Midwest, in an area that pretty much requires a car. Yet my use is extremely limited (a few thousand miles per year). Mostly going to stores and back as I work from home.

Yet we travel around the area to state parks, bike trails, etc.. every weekend. Even if I lived in a city, that doesn't mean I would want to be confined to the same 10 square miles my entire life. We live in a vast, beautiful country. Why isolate yourself to a tiny little block? Life is too short for that.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#347

Post by gramstrong »

20years wrote: post #236
falcolas wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: Your chances of dying before "making it big" and retiring are somewhere in the 1-in-10 range. Investing works mostly because of the current trend of artificially propping up the stock market. Any failure in your investment strategy leave you in the same boat as the current boomer retirees who are trying to get back in the workforce. Not to mention, your life is going to be pretty miserable if you're wor…

This is a good counterpoint and something my Dad points out often. He was very frugal, worked long hours and saved as much as he could so him and my mom could have a good retirement. She passed away at 42, so that never happened. He has so many regrets and wishes he invested more of his money & time in experiences with her while she was alive. I think there needs to be a balance. The trend of working crazy hours to s…

This makes me feel really sad. While my grandparents were still alive, I put off visiting them for literal years. They lived overseas and I combated for too long trying to justify the cost of travel for the length of time that I could afford to take off work and see them...unfortunately they both passed away very quickly. I've since realized that if I had a chance to spend just a few days with them again, I wouldn't even think twice about spending the money to do it. A hard lesson to learn.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#348

Post by s73v3r_ »

sametmax wrote: post #280
gascan wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

spending a lot of effort on living frugal. There's just something off-putting about the thought of spending decades living frugally There's a whole range there. You don't have to live on ramen. But you can be really aggressive about insurance premiums, utility bills, etc. You can learn home & auto repair & maintenance. You can make major life structure choices (Can your family live with one car?). These all can make…

> Can your family live with one car It's really funny to read that. It's probably very american to think 2 cars per family is the norm. I think if I group the 10 adults I see the most on average, we own 2 cars together. And we are all between 30 and 55.

In the vast majority of the US, if you don't have a car, you don't go anywhere.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#349

Post by graedus »

ryandrake wrote: post #216
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #158

The highest probability for success for the 'everyday person': - Earn as much as you can from your own work. Take a 2nd job, change to a higher paying job, ask for more responsibility and a raise at your current job, go back to school for a more lucrative degree, ... - Spend much less than you earn. Economize, share an apartment, buy an inexpensive car, shop at Trader Joe's and Costco, .... - Learn how to invest. Thi…

Hmm... I’m still sitting here waiting for that “magic” of compounding interest to take effect. So often HN (and r/personalfinance) investment advice reminds me of the ol’ Draw the Rest of the Owl meme[1]. Just “do mutual funds” and you’ll one day be a millionaire because Compounding Interest. Ok well thanks to a few recessions, poor timing of grad school and bouts of unemployment, my retirement is not much more than…

> Ok well thanks to a few recessions

I'm interested in this guy's[0][1] approach to take most of the downside risk out of recessions/bear markets/crashes compared to buy-and-hold. Basically, start with a diversified portfolio, and when any of them closes below their monthly 12mo moving average, sell it and buy treasuries.

I'm sure there are thousands of more sophisticated models out there, but the nice thing about this is its simplicity - minimal management, just rebalance once a month according to a single rule and forget about it. Looks like it works well, backtested against lots of historical market data sets.

[0] http://michaelritger.com/2017/10/19/tactical-asset-allocatio... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGnNGuo5ywg

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#350

Post by batty_alex »

icedchai wrote: post #286
wilsonnb wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having some talent at hiring and managing people helped. Luck. > Spending my teenage years writing clever little programs in 6502 assembly language on my Commodore 64 instead of smoking weed and partying helped. Lucky enough to grow up with access to a computer in a time when that wasn't common. > Having a strong knack for math and computer science helped. Luck again.

Are you saying everything is luck? come on... My dad taught me about investing when I was a teenager. I actually applied this for the next 20+ years. Was this luck ?

Yes, you had a Dad that could teach you how to invest at a young age. Also, you had a Dad that had extra money to invest.
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